By Sarah N. Lynch and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S.
June 20, 2020
By Sarah N. Lynch and Karen Freifeld
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Saturday that President Donald Trump had fired Geoffrey Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan whose office is investigating Trump’s attorney Rudolph Giuliani, after Berman publicly refused to step down from his post.
In a letter to Berman, Barr said he was “surprised and quite disappointed” by Berman’s statement late on Friday night in which he refused to quit his job, saying Berman had chosen “public spectacle over public service.”
“I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so,” Barr said, adding that the Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District on New York, will become the Acting U.S. Attorney until a permanent replacement is installed.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump said Berman’s firing was a matter for Barr and was not his “department.”
Berman’s termination marks another remarkable development in an escalating crisis at the Justice Department that started on Friday night, when Barr unexpectedly announced that Berman was stepping down and would be replaced by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton.
Berman, however, issued a statement of his own, saying he had no intention of stepping down until the Senate confirms his successor, and that his office’s investigations would continue.
Berman’s office, which is known for prosecuting terrorism cases, Wall Street financial crimes and government corruption, has not shied from taking on figures in Trump’s orbit.
His office oversaw the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, indicted two Giuliani associates and launched a probe into Giuliani in connection with his efforts to dig up dirt on Trump’s political adversaries in Ukraine.
Giuliani has not formally been accused of any wrongdoing.
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, also alleges in a new book the president once promised Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan he would oust prosecutors in Berman’s office who were investigating a Turkish bank, Halkbank, for evading U.S. sanctions against Iran.
“The president said to Erdogan at one point, ‘Look, those prosecutors in New York are Obama people. Wait till I get my people in and then we’ll take care of this.'” Bolton told “ABC News” in a pre-taped interview set to air on Sunday.
Berman’s office ultimately secured an indictment against the bank, and the case is ongoing.
On Friday night, Barr had said he planned to install Craig Carpenito, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, as Acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.
But in his letter on Saturday the attorney general said he would instead designate Strauss, Berman’s hand-picked No. 2 in the office, to take over in an acting capacity.
As for Clayton, his nomination to the job appeared on thin ice on Saturday, after both Democratic Senators from New York voiced their opposition and urged him to withdraw his name from consideration.
Clayton could not be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Katanga Johnson in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler and Daniel Wallis)
